Snapshot
by Cookies94
Summary: A glimpse into the life of various characters in Potter-verse.


Sybill Trelawney was flighty by nature. Throughout her Hogwarts career it had been a character trait that her friends had learned to rely on. She was silly, a bit out there, unreliable to a point. If Sybill said she would be there or help you with something, it was almost instantly implied that she would never properly be on time. She had shown up to every class at least five minutes late, it wasn't through any fault of her own, it was simply who she was.

Everyone knew who Sybill Trelawney was, she was the girl who was a bit off, she had a propensity for spouting odd facts and information, making offhand observations that always came seemingly out of nowhere. She was a wonder to be around, morbid at times, odd, and just a dash of random.

Her Hogwarts career had consisted of a handful of standard grades, six OWLs, a general dissatisfaction at her inherent tardiness, a couple of really good friends, and all in all, a good time. Sybill Trelawney had always been all right at the standard classes, she did not necessarily excel at any of them, but she enjoyed them well enough. The only class she had felt truly at home, where she knew she was where she belonged, where she finally felt at peace, was Divination. She had no natural tact for it at all, she misread signs and misinterpreted symbols, but she loved it all the time.

It's true she had done much better in Arithmancy, a version of Divination of sorts, though wholly different, but she had never felt quite at home in the classroom working down rows of numbers to decipher a hidden meaning behind names and life paths. The Divination classroom, however, had held a sense of wonder. The light incense, tea cups and crystal balls, they sat at tables rather than desks and the whole thing just seemed so much _more._

Sybill Trelawney graduated from Hogwarts the summer of seventy-three. The flighty nature and tardiness she had possessed which had been universally accepted as a part of her character in Hogwarts and was viewed as generally endearing took on a more serious, inhibitory tone once she was faced with real life. Hogwarts had been a dream land, a place she had at times suffered, but at whole had enjoyed. It had given her a place to let her imagination grow, explore new depths, be herself as best as she could, but with the loss of Hogwarts she was faced with the world, one overcome by war and strife, one she had not in the least expected.

Her particular skill set did not provide her any easy jobs, she had never really been sure what she had wanted when she had sat in that career prospect meeting so long ago in her fifth year, she had never quite made up her mind. She faced the world with a sort of lost indecision, unaware and unsure of herself and everything around her.

At first she stayed with her parents, if only for six months, she worked as a shop clerk, ringing various people in and out. It was unfulfilling work, leaving Sybill feeling oddly dead inside; every day was the same old thing, ring in ring out, collect the pay after two weeks. It was repetitive, mundane; it lacked the sort of mystery and allure that she had prized so much during her Hogwarts year.

After a few months of work she quit, or got fired depending on the telling. Still lacking the quality so necessary in holding a job, mainly showing up on time, Sybill had stacked an impressive amount of tardies, more than the establishment had ever seen. She was late nearly every day, though trying, and after a few months of seemingly soul crushing work she had quit.

She bummed around her parents' home for a while, half-heartedly sending in applications to similar establishments with a reluctant flare, only when her parents would inquire on how the job search was going would she head out to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, or other such wizarding places and fill out some forms. For the most part she listened to the radio, enjoying the various shows. She quite enjoyed the kids' shows that would sometimes find their way onto her radio wave, but her favorite shows were the various radio psychics who would sometimes grace the airwaves.

Her favorite show, eleven am every Wednesday morning, was the highlight of Sybil's week. It rekindled the sense of belonging that Sybil had felt in Divination class, even if only for an hour. For an hour or two after the psychic had come on, made her predictions, connected with the guests, communicated to the after-life, Sybill would get a rush of productivity, she would browse the Daily Prophet ads, circle possible places to work with her lack of qualifications, and send in a resume or too. After the second hour it would wear off though, and Sybill would slouch back down in her chair rereading the Divination books that she had collected over the years.

It was with some luck that Sybill was walking throw muggle London one day, to meet a friend from Hogwarts who was staying there as rent was decidedly cheaper than Diagon Alley, when she happened on an advertisement for a muggle Psychic. Sitting outside a shop that proclaimed to sell natural remedies and herbs, a collection of magic book and candles, and even some healing stones sat a sign.

Sybill had always believed in signs, the literal or intangible, and she stopped outside the store to read the sign. A sense of belonging, the belonging, came over her and she felt a conviction that this was what she meant to do. With knowledge of the actual art of Divination and an ability of picking up enough about people to seem believable, though she lacked any proper actual talent that could get her a job in the wizarding world in the same field, Sybill managed to get herself hired.

She worked for a stint at the shop, telling fortunes, reading palms, communicating with the dead, whatever it was that paid the wages before renting a flat nearby. Sybill felt relatively fulfilled for once in her life, albeit perhaps a tad fake. She gained a following of sorts in the surrounding muggle community, but just as the opportunity had come so suddenly, so did it disappear. The shop closed down, as shops were want to do at that time, and Sybill was left with a rent she could not pay and a sense of failure once again.

She gave up the flat almost at once, she had had no proper lease with which to hold her, but too proud to go back home to her parents who had proclaimed how proud they were she had gotten a job, she had not told them the actual nature of their work, Sybill took on a gypsy style of living. She moved about from place to place, always muggle, reading palms and tarot cards, gazing into false crystal balls, and making a meager wage. She fell into a sort of traveling group for a while, sharing a caravan with two other 'psychics' who were muggle and faker even than Sybill.

Life passed this way for a while, somewhere new, and through her constant movement Sybill saw a bit of the world, met her fair share of the underbelly of society, and spent her nights in misty tents with a group of people who were easily becoming her family. For the first time in her life Sybill was happy, properly so. Some days were hard, some days she barely ate, but she finally belonged, and that's all she had ever wanted.

It was during these days that Sybill's peculiar style flourished, handmade scarves, stolen skirts, and the odd shoe. What one could get their hands on they would wear. She had a few belongings which she kept in a raggedy suitcase that she had gotten off of a traveling business man during a stay in Belgium. Life went on this way for quite a while, the years melded together, the days became one, time no longer mattered when one was seeing the world, living off what they could find, when one was happy.

No one knew what had happened to Sybill for years, at least no one who had once been in Sybill's group of friends; the people she had kept up with in the two years after Hogwarts where she had stayed in England were left wondering occasionally where she had gone. At afternoon teas, shopping trips, the occasional get together the question would tend to crop up "Whatever happened to Sybill?" In a time of war, for that's what it was, people went missing all the time and by the third year of her absence Sybill had been presumed dead by those close to her. She was speculated about occasionally, what had caused her death? Had she met with death eaters? But she quickly became an idea more than a person.

Sybill, on the other hand, did not think of her old friends in the least. She had taken off to her gypsy life one day on a whim, sending no letter and saying no goodbyes. The last she had ever been seen, or she had been seen, was at the wedding of one of her ex-school mates and that was the last time she thought about anyone from her past.

It was for this reason that when Sybill reappeared suddenly in the summer of seventy-nine that no one actually quite believed it was her. She showed up rainy July day at the Ministry outside the Misuse of Magic Office where she knew her old dorm mate, Mafalda Hopkirk, worked. She sat outside the office, spindly and covered in bangles, silvery shawl wrapped around her shoulders and ragged suitcase by her feet waiting for Mafalda to arrive for work for the day to ask if she could stay with her temporarily, while she set herself back on her feet.

It was a shock to almost all that July as Sybill Trelawney reappeared in wizarding society, uttering odd phrases and professing fortunes to bystanders on the street and greeting people by glancing at their palms. She was often pressed with questions on where she had gone, why she had returned, but Sybill dodged them all with half-answers that said and told nothing.

She had become shrouded in mystery.

It wasn't long until Sybill, crashing on Mafalda's couch, found out that a position in Hogwarts had opened in her subject, Divination. With an unhappy temporary roommate, one who did not appreciate being accosted on her way to work about the shapes in her tea leaves, Sybill set up an interview with Albus Dumbledore for the position.

Sybill didn't recall much from the interview, indeed to her it seemed it had been over before it had truly begun, but she had seemed to impress and it was not long until Sybill was back to her dream land, her safety net, not as a student but as a teacher. She took over the old Divination quarters, draping various shawls and blankets that she had acquired through questionable means, lighting incense and creating a room that seemed to be designed after her years traveling.

She was not, perhaps, the best teacher for Divination, for she was still as she had always been, a fraud, but Sybill looked the part at least and while she could not predict or foretell in the least, she could teach the subject that she had lived reasonably well and so she earned her keep. Sybill was relatively happy once more and she passed through her life stable, finally possessing a proper home where she did not have to worry about rent, or food.

She was still, however, flighty, showing up to her own lessons late, occasionally losing a student's assignment. She grasped her fellow teacher's palms at meals occasionally and tsked to herself as she read their life lines, recalling the days where she had lived off the kindness of strangers. Sybill Trelawney was perhaps not well liked by the faculty or students, she did not truly belong with anyone, and she was often ostracized for her flighty, morbid, and intrusive behavior, but none of it mattered to her.

She was happy.


End file.
